As well as being the patron of England, St George is the patron of Egypt, Bulgaria, Aragon, Catalonia, Romania, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Iraq, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia. And of course, Georgia where there are 365 Churches dedicated to him.
Thanks to the rise of irrational rationalism, even many Catholics go along with the idea that because there was a legend about St George, he must himself have been a legend. The dedication of Churches to him from the fourth century onwards rather tells against this fancy.
We may provisionally accept the general consensus that he was born sometime between 256 and 283, that he was a soldier in the Imperial Guard at Nicomedia under Diocletian, that when the most savage of persecutions began, including the requirement that every soldier sacrifice to the false gods, St George openly professed his faith and was martyred. When I offer incense on the feast of a martyr I often reflect that all they had to do to save their lives was to offer a few grains of incense to the false gods.
The first Church in his honour in England dates back to the reign of Alfred, but his popularity grew during the crusades. His was very much a popular cultus rather than centrally organised, and by the time of the hundred years’ war, he was invoked continually by the soldier, immortalised of course in the line of Henry V “Cry ‘God for Harry, England and St George!’”
The legend of the defeat of the dragon has its own significance for England today. The people of Silene had to bring a sheep in order to appease the dragon so that they could draw water. When a sheep was not available, a maiden was substituted, the name being drawn by lot. St George happened along when the princess was to be sacrificed. He fortified himself with the sign of the cross and slayed the dragon.
Today in England, human sacrifice takes the particular form of abortion and the killing of human embryos either for experimentation or in the process of IVF. This sacrifice is made in order to avoid some difficulty, to create new life according to our own demands, or to use the human life to produce a cure for other, older people.
We pray to St George for the protection of human life in England today, for the true, worthy and noble respect of maidenhood, and for the triumph of the truth against falsehood, good against evil, God against Satan.
Cry “God for Elizabeth, England and St George.”
5 comments:
Happy Saint George's Day. God Save The Queen.
There should be a public holiday throughout the United Kingdom today, and on Saint David's Day, Saint Andrew's Day and Saint Patrick's Day. Three fall in these Islands' incomparable Spring and early Summer, while the fourth would preclude any Christmas anything until it was out of the way.
Away with pointless celebrations of the mere fact that the banks are on holiday. If we had proper holidays, as in other countries, then everyone, even shop workers and distribution drivers, would have those days off, as in other countries.
I have just watched a Scouts' Saint George's Day Parade, led by the Union and Saint George's Flags, march away from a Medieval village green to the edge of the village and into a little Victorian Catholic church. Where, of course, the National Anthem and Jerusalem were sung. Dignum et justum est.
Even if the Tomb of Saint George at his birthplace, which is now known as Lod and which is the location of Israel's principal airport, has become a shadow of its former self as a major focus of unity between Christians and Muslims in devotion to the Patron Saint of Palestine and Egypt before, and as much as, the Patron Saint of England. Three quarters of those who practised that devotion were violently expelled in 1948.
What a delightful picture, David. But just one thought. Have a look at the second verse of the National Anthem (the first verse of which I would happily sing with gusto) and see if there isn't one line you are unable to conscientiously join in with...
Forgive my irreverence but did not St George get about a bit?
Mater mari, do you mean the second verse (usually omitted), or the third verse (usually sung second)? Not that I can see any problem with either of them.
David: I mean the verse which begins 'Thy choicest gifts in store'. My problem is with the fourth line. A clue: one of our children has profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) and was, coincidentally, born in 1967.
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